Monday, July 31, 2006

Andy Virgil

There's really no information about Andy Virgil that I've been able to find. He seems to have arrived on the scene around 1955 out of nowhere. Perhaps he was honing his skills, uncredited, on advertising work? But where and for whom remains a mystery at this point.

5 comments:

Apropos of nothing, that EXACT chair was on Antiques Roadshow last night, a Charles Eames by Herman Miller. Still had the original fabric, which was that odd olive green color in the illustration. Caught my eye immediately.

lynsa; I've heard from the ever knowledgable David Apatoff, of Illustration Art blog fame ( see my sidebar) that many illustrators who did this type of work haunted the antique shops of New York City for props like this chair. Its very likely that the artist posed his model on that actual chair and didn't just "fake" it from a photo.

chrissie a; you are not alone! the afore mentioned Mr. Apatoff (and others) have lamented the fact that my scans leave them hanging - but I'd be scanning all night as well as all day if I provided all the remaining story pages! I'm sorry I can't help all you readers out there, but I encourage you to put your pent-up creativity to use and write your own ending. ;-)

Leif, if one purpose of a good illustration is to make you want to turn the page and read the story, you are heartless to show us all these great illustrations and thwart us from finding out what happens!

(On the other hand, I have to tell Chrissie A that my wife and I once bought a romantic John Gannam illustration and we were so curious about the story that we got the 1954 Good Housekeeping magazine in which it appeared. The story turned out to have such a terrible ending that my wife can't stand the painting any more. So sometimes we're better off not knowing!)